The Trump FCC’s Chinese Drone Ban Continues To Be A Sloppy, Protectionist Mess

from the ‘these-are-not-serious-people’ dept

Last year the Trump administration announced it would ban Chinese-made drones from the U.S. As I noted at the time, the plan had several problems, not least of which being the Trump administration is a racist, corrupt, dysfunctional mess filled with weirdos and lazy incompetents, primarily interested in assorted personal investment grifts and protecting less popular U.S. companies from having to compete.

Many of the banned drones from companies like DJI are better, cheaper, and more popular among consumers, resulting in a 70 percent market share. Given Trump’s sons are personally invested in drone manufacturing, this has less to do with national security and privacy than it does grift.

The Trump administration has made numerous claims of security risks related to products by companies like DJI, but offered absolutely no hard evidence at any point supporting the claims. We’ve repeatedly seen similar factually challenged policy rhetoric surrounding electric cars, AI, and telecom more broadly (remember how we had to do everything AT&T wanted or risk losing the “race to 5G?”).

As expected, the Trump admin’s plan to ban popular overseas drones isn’t going that well. Consumers are incredibly annoyed that they’ve been cut off from the best and cheapest products on the market. And numerous companies have just changed the labels on Chinese drones and cameras to sneak by the ban in a U.S. market absolutely swimming in Chinese tech imports of all kinds.

It’s created a complicated game of whac-a-mole at the FCC, who first tried to fine offenders, and is now eyeing a broader retroactive ban of these companies as well:

“Two Fridays ago, the FCC had already proposed a $25,000 fine on eight of those “front companies,” including the ones behind the Skyrover drones and Xtra cameras. But now, the FCC is proposing a lot more than a slap on the wrist — it’s planning to ban those same companies from continuing to import, distribute, market, and sell their existing drones and cameras.”

While folks like FCC boss Brendan Carr are saying they’re doing this to protect U.S. consumer privacy and national security (something often parroted by lazy press outlets), none of these folks have any credibility on these subjects, and have actively, repeatedly, made both issues indisputably worse.

The U.S. is too corrupt to pass a meaningful privacy law, which threatens both privacy and national security. I’d also argue that Trump administration corruption is every bit as bad, if not worse, than anything China could do to us at this point. And you’ve seen for yourself how most of the Trump administration’s cybersecurity policies are indistinguishable from a foreign attack.

There’s the added irony that the Trump admin likes to dismantle governance and lobotomize regulators, then try to impose massive new policy plans that require competent governance and regulatory oversight. The press generally adds to the dysfunction by lending the administration policy credibility it didn’t earn in policy areas it clearly doesn’t understand.

In this case, DJI urged lawmakers to conduct audits of its devices for years, and was ignored. The normal comment period for public input was ignored. Folks in the aerospace industry say they were neither consulted, nor given any advance notice of the quick ban. Drone and RC hobbyist organizations are annoyed and dismayed, and state the ban was shadow dropped last Christmas to lessen scrutiny.

I think there’s something to be said for allowing Chinese competitors (in EVs, drones, AI, and everything else) into the country, but also properly funding and staffing your regulators to police labor, competition, NatSec (when they actually arise), and consumer rights abuses.

Greedy zealots in corporate America and the Trump administration don’t want to do that, because it would result in competition and accountability, eroding precious quarterly returns.

So instead you get this sort of incoherent and xenophobic game of whac-a-mole, run by bad faith weirdos like Brendan Carr. Fully supported by many U.S. corporations — whose execs will talk your ear off over cocktails about their love of free market competition and competitive entrepreneurial innovation — right up until better overseas tech arrives and they’re forced to actually try.

Expect more and more of this dumb, xenophobic, pointless protectionist bullshit, especially in AI as the biggest U.S. tech companies, slowly drowning in debt and enshittification, begin to struggle with cheaper and better overseas alternatives in a country now waging open war on science and sound policy.

Filed Under: ban, brendan carr, china, drone ban, drones, fcc, incompetent, protectionism, xenophobia

Companies: dji